Walking the Path with Jesus and Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931): Lent and Early Easter SESSION THREE: Mon Eve
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Walking the Path with Jesus and Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931): Lent and Early Easter SESSION THREE: Mon Eve. April 23 (6:30-8 p.m.) repeated Tues. Morn. April 24 (9:30-11 a.m.) Once, as I was burying one of my dead selves, the grave-digger came by and said to me, “Of all those who come here to bury, you alone I like.” Said I, “You please me exceedingly, but why do you like me?” “Because,” said he, “They come weeping and go weeping—you only come laughing and go laughing.” The Gravedigger, Gibran: Gibran Readings, Session 3 [On Left-- cancelled Dubai stamp honoring Gibran] 1. Introduction: Overview of Gibran Sessions & Artwork page 1 2. Maronite Heritage pages 1-2 3. Political Writing and Views pages 2-3 4. More about Mary Haskell Minis pages 3 5. Gibran’s Death and Legacy pages 3-5 6. Gibran, Spirits Rebellious (1908) pages 5-6 7. Gibran, Spiritual Vision pages 6-7 8. Gibran, Pity the Nation pages 7-8 9. Mary Magdalen selections, Jesus, Son of Man (1928) pages 8-11 10. Gibran’s Art: Rodin and Gibran page 10 11. Gibran’s Art & Writing: Blake & Gibran pages 11-14 Reading 1: Overview (a) 3 Gibran Sessions and Gibran’s Artwork Email me at [email protected] & I’ll email back Session 1-2 packets to you! Session 1 February 19-20. We read and discussed Gibran’s achievement, early life, his devout Maronite (Catholic) faith, and his openness to other religion (the Baha’i faith). We focused primary on his most famous work (The Prophet, 1923) and his earliest work (The Madman, 1918). We discussed the voices that appear in Gibran’s Jesus, Son of Man (1928) and read one of the opening narratives from that work. Session 2 (March 19-20). We considered the middle part of Gibran’s life followed by a more extenGsive discussion of The Prophet. We also considered the life and work of 13th C. Persian, Sufi poet Rumi, a central influence on Gibran. We continued our discussion of the narratives from Jesus, Son of Man. This is the Third Session packet (April 16-17). We will explore Gibran’s political thought, his relationship to the Maronite Church to Gibran, and Gibran’s death burial, and legacy. We will also explore Gibran’s spiritual vision, focusing on his watercolor Divine World and selections from Sand and Foam (1926) and A Poet’s Voice. We will consider the Mary Magdalen series of narratives from Jesus, Son of Man, Gibran’s patriotic poem, and Gibran’s artistic influences: poet-engraver William Blake and Parisian sculptor Auguste Rodin. Finally, we’ll work with a PowerPoint of Gibran’s art work. Link to Gibran’s major works and biography: https://www.famousauthors.org/khalil-gibran Project Gutenberg Australia has almost all of Gibran’s works online. Here are the 2 Gibran major works. Son of Man = http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0301451h.html The Prophet = http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200061h.html (b) Gibran’s Artwork. Although Gibran thought he would become an artist, his artwork has never taken center stage. Even so, his artwork is worth noting for its mysticism, its subject matter, and the evidence of artists who influenced his work, especially the mystical writing and artwork of William Blake, the 17th-early 18th c. English engraver, painter, and poet. You’ll find a reading in the packet on Gibran’s mentors: William Blake and Parisian artist Auguste Rodin. Using a PowerPoint sequence I’ve developed, we’ll look at Blake’s art. Reading 2. Gibran’s Maronite Heritage 2A. Gibran’s Maronite Catholic religious heritage: The Maronites began in the Near East in an area common language was Aramaic, the same language spoken by Jesus. Aramaic is still used by the Maronites in various hymns and parts of the Mass, especially at the Consecration. Celibacy is not strictly required for Maronite deacons and priests in parishes outside of North America; monks, however, must remain celibate, as well as bishops who are normally selected from the monasteries. Gibran--Sess. 3—April 23-24, 2018--St. Richard’s Episcopal Church, Winter Park FL--Session designer-facilitator Pamela Menke 1 An Eastern rite churches, the Maronite Church is named for St. Maron, a 4th century hermit. After his death around the year 410, his monastic disciples built a large monastery in his honor, from which other monasteries were founded. The Maronite Church is the only one Eastern Church that has maintained an unbroken allegiance to Rome and the Pope (considered the Successor of St. Peter). In fact, in 517, as major controversy arose in other Eastern churches over the Council of Chalcedon’s 451 declaration that Jesus is “true God and true Man.” The Maronites supported the declaration. As a result, 350 Maronite monks were martyred for defending the Council’s degrees. Because of their unwavering support of the Council, the Maronites became known as the “Chalcedonians.” Even today, on the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, the central Maronite liturgical prayer is “O Lord, preserve your children from all error or deviation, grant us to live and die proclaiming: ‘Our faith is the faith of Peter, the faith of Peter is our faith!’” During the 7th C., the Maronites again suffered persecution and fled for refuge in the mountains of Lebanon. There they maintained and grew in their Christian faith and culture. At the time of the Crusades, close bonds were established by the Maronites with the West which have endured to this day. A number of Maronite monasteries—each consisting of a small number of monks—were established in the natural mountain caves of the most Holy Mountain not far from Gibran’s birthplace. The Divine Liturgy of the Maronite Mass traces its roots to Antioch where “the disciples were first called Christians” (Acts 11:26). St. Peter fled to Antioch when a persecution broke out in Jerusalem, resulting in the martyrdom of St. James (Acts 12). According to tradition, St. Peter founded the Church at Antioch and became its first bishop, and the early Maronites became the direct descendants of the people who received their faith from the Apostle Peter. Shortly after the time of the Apostles, a liturgy developed in Antioch which exists today in the Maronite rite. The overall characteristic of this tradition is primary belief in the Trinity coupled with emphasis on Jesus as true God and true Man. The liturgy also retains certain aspects of the ancient liturgy of the Sacred Jewish Scripture. For example, at the Consecration, the priest tips the chalice in the four directions of the compass to symbolize the shedding of Christ’s blood for the entire universe. 2B. Gibran: Spirits Rebellious and Excommunication (1908). [Short selections from Spirits Rebellious is included as a reading.] The Church was uneasy about Gibran’s open praise and acceptance of all forms of worship: "I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit." But when Church leaders became aware of his 1908 short story collection Spirits Rebellious (written in Arabic), he was excommunicated. The book was publicly burned in the Beirut market place by Maronite Church and Ottoman State officials who judged it fiercely dangerous to the peace of the country. Gibran’s bitter denunciation of both religious and political injustice brought his anticipated exile from the country. He was already living in Paris to study art, but could not return to Lebanon for any purpose. Excommunication was particularly serious in a country where civil identity and justice was based on religious membership. In many ways, Gibran was being torn from his birth religion and his Lebanese roots. Beginning in the mid-1920”s and concluding in 1931, the hold of the Ottoman Empire was broken, and Lebanon had become part of greater Syria. Sometime around the middle of the 1920’s, Gibran, who had become famous, was welcomed back into the Maronite communion. 2C. Gibran’s Spiritual Vision. As Gibran became more aware of the world, he became increasingly committed to approaching and embracing a vision of the divine. In this reading packet, you’ll find 3 examples of Gibran’s spiritual vision: (1) Gibran’s “Divine World” watercolor that uses the ancient symbol of Hand of God, short selections from the sayings and insights in Sand and Foam (1926), and the conclusion of Gibran’s A Poet’s Voice. Reading 3. Gibran’s Political Writing and Views Even though Gibran insisted: "I am not a politician, nor do I wish to become one,” he was a Syrian nationalist. He wrote articles and a column for a U.S. Arabic newspaper denouncing the Ottoman presence in Lebanon. Arguing for Syrian independence, he called for the adoption of Arabic as the Syrian national language, arguing his position from a geographic point of view. His articles were designed to inspire and motivate Arab Americans. He caught the spirit of identify with country that President Kennedy was to espouse years later. Speaking about Lebanon and Syria, Gibran asks: "Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country?" Gibran--Sess. 3—April 23-24, 2018--St. Richard’s Episcopal Church, Winter Park--Session designer-facilitator Pamela Menke 2 In another article, Gibran article exhorted Arab Americans to be proud of their mixed heritage: “...stand before the towers of New York, Washington, Chicago and San Francisco saying in your heart, 'I am the descendant of a people that built Damascus, and and Tyre and Sidon, and Antioch, and now I am here to build with you, and with a will….It is to be proud of being an American, but it is also to be proud that your fathers and mothers came from a land upon which God laid His gracious hand and raised His messengers.” During this years, Gibran published his poem “Pity the Nation” in Arabic.